Once Upon A Time
by Severus1snape
Summary: : Severus Snape is fighting to stay alive after Nagini s bite at Hogwarts, everybody wants him dead, until Harry comes along and tells three fairytales.


**_Title:_** _Once Upon A Time._

 ** _Disclaimer:_** _I make no profits from this story. I write for fun and J. K. Rowling owns Harry Potter._

 ** _Resume:_** _Severus Snape is fighting to stay alive after Nagini´s bite at Hogwarts, everybody wants him dead, until Harry comes along and tells three fairytales._

 ** _Pairing_** _: Harry/Snape._

 ** _Warnings:_** _Fairytales, Love, M/M._

 ** _Author´s notes:_** _The Final Battle in 7_ _th_ _year. The Order and Dumbledore hunted and destroyed the Horcruxes with success, so Harry could kill Voldemort – which he does. Harry has spent his entire 6_ _th_ _and 7_ _th_ _year training to fight Voldemort and at the same time learning Healing under Madam Pomfrey, because he is sick of Dark Lord´s and death, Harry wants to see life instead. Before Snape murdered Dumbledore, Harry had a secret crush on the Slytherin._

 **Chapter one: Healing**

Everywhere people were in-between sorrow and joy. Voldemort had fallen for good this time by Harry Potter´s hand. Something the Gryffindor had been training towards since the age of eleven, when most only had to be bothered with learning about Magic.

Many had lost their lives bravely fighting against evil. Friends, lovers, parents, siblings, even grandparents. There would be a time to grief and a time to heal once more; to move forward in this new and better world with much less darkness.

Hogwarts was in part ruin after the last battle. Corpses were being collected all around, both friends and foes, in order to name the casualties of war. They were gathered on the stone floor of the Great Hall, where loved ones could grief along with others, until their burials could take place.

The school would be rebuilt. Families would move on in time. Things would be better. Eventually.

People Harry didn´t know by name were thanking him and paying him respect for freeing them from Evil, and as the Gryffindor made his way through the parting crowd of wizards and witches he wanted to yell at them. To tell them it was not only his doing. Of course most knew of the Order of the Phoenix, but nobody had any idea that there was one man, that had made all of this possible.

But Harry knew. And he would find him and make things right.

"SNAAAAPE!" Harry called as he entered Hogwarts and searched everywhere he could think of. Neville appeared next to him along with Ginny holding hands.

"He´s in the Great Hall, Harry," Neville said.

Harry started walking towards that destination briskly. "Is he dead?" Even as he spoke the words his heart pounded in his chest and he felt the bile trying to break free from his body. He swallowed to keep it down.

"Not yet." Ginny answered, and Harry ran. His friends followed to make sure he didn´t do something stupid that would land him a spot in Azkaban.

Harry reached the Death eaters that lay on the left side of the room, since all the mourning were on the right side, and ignored the ones that had been covered in blankets. He noticed that nobody was aiding a dying Dolohov and moved on until he found _him_. Harry kneeled in front of Snape, and Snape stared up at him as blood was slowly pouring out of his wound in his stomach. He had an additional wound on his neck but it looked sealed as if someone had healed it already. Maybe Snape had managed that before his body weakened. Or maybe it was someone´s idea of a sick joke – to let the man die slowly amongst corpses.

"Professor," Harry breathed and used his wand to tear open his professor´s shirt to tend to the stomach wound. A pale and shaking hand gripped Harry´s wrist to stop him. "It´s alright, professor, I´ve got you now."

"Harry! What the bloody hell are you doing!" A male yelled loudly catching the attention of everyone in the hall. Harry turned and stared into the face of Terry Boot who held his wand in his left hand.

People were gathering around them silently. "Healing professor Snape." Harry turned to look at the older man on the cold floor again and said, "It´s okay. Let me help you." Snape shook his head but his hand was too weak to hold onto Harry´s and Harry placed it down to cast a diagnostic spell.

"Let the fucker die. He´s a damn murderer." Terry spat, and many agreed with him, but Harry didn´t stop what he was doing. Instead he opened his satchel that he carried everywhere since last year. Hermione had taught him a spell that would make the inside able to hold an endless amount of things, like gauges, potions and antidotes.

When Harry spoke, he didn´t answer Terry, but instead he cast a powerful shield around Snape and himself, wrapping them both in Harry´s own magic. Then he began working on Snape as dark orbs stared up at him in confusion.

"Once upon a time there was a pureblooded witch that lived with her father. He was a mean and selfish bastard, and treated his daughter like a stupid slave. Like she was a freak that didn´t deserve any better than what she got." He conjured some water and helped Snape drink.

He began casting healing spells and finding potions to give Snape as he told his story, and the Great Hall had once more fallen silent as friends, classmates, Order members and staff listened. They owed Harry that. He was the one that has saved them all.

"One day the witch fell in love with a beautiful, rich man that lived not far from her. She often saw this man and she decided to make him fall in love with her too." Snape screamed as Harry had to reopen a particularly nasty wound to get out the infection. Harry kept speaking in a calm soothing voice as his hands and wand fought to save Snape from his destiny.

"But the witch was ugly and poor, and almost a squib. The only thing she was really good at was brewing potions. So that´s what she did. She made a love potion. And then she waited. She waited until her father was out and that beautiful man had to make a stop by her house because his horse was thirsty. She offered both animal and man something to drink. The man drank because he was polite."

Snape was given more water, as he couldn´t drink much. Harry couldn´t give him a pain potion while working on this wound, he needed to know where Snape felt pain. He was not a healer, only studying to become one, so he didn´t have that much experience, yet. "One day she became pregnant and she made the mistake to stop giving her Love the potion, thinking that surely by now he loved her too. He didn´t, and to her sorrow he left her. She gave birth at an orphanage, I think, and before she died from a broken heart she named the boy after his muggle father, Tom Marvolo Riddle."

Snape´s eyes widened, and Harry wasn´t sure whether from the pain or in shock. Harry blocked out everyone else in the room, even his friends, because he needed to concentrate. "The boy grew up a loner and didn´t understand what was wrong with him when magic started to appear, he felt like a freak too, like his mother. The mother he felt left him behind to live on in misery, all alone. He took it out on animals first, and later, on the other children there. When Dumbledore came to explain about magic and Hogwarts, nobody knew that this particular boy would choose to use his magic to do evil. That one day, he would become Voldemort."

The great hall seemed to gasp when most did so in unison. Harry closed the wound and moved on to the next one on Snape´s left shoulder. He began another story.

"Once upon a time many years later, another boy was born into loneliness. His mother was a muggle-born and his father a pureblood. He too felt like freak. His own family told him he was one from the moment he came to them. They treated him poorly, made him do most of the chores, they didn´t give him his own clothes or enough to eat. He didn´t have friends either. His parents were dead because of Voldemort, like so many others, like Voldemort, he too was an orphan."

Snape´s legs were next; the right ankle was clearly broken. "One day a man named Hagrid came to him to take him away. He told him about magic and he was happy to go with Hagrid. He learned about his parents and why they were murdered, he had friends for the first time in his life. He also had a fame he didn´t understand or want, and a great burden was placed upon his shoulders; he had to kill Voldemort. He chose to accept this burden, he chose good. They had everything in common, yet, they chose the opposite in life, because this boy had something Voldemort did not. He had love. His name was Harry James Potter."

If Harry had looked at his friends, his adoptive family and others around him, he would have seen many in tears by now, because of his stories. Harry offered Snape painkillers and waited until the man was able to speak. Meanwhile he began his last story.

"There once was another pureblooded witch that fell in love with a muggle man. He was neither rich nor handsome, but you don´t get to choose whom you fall for. Her family made her choose between him and them, she chose love and married the muggle. When she had a son the man changed and became a bastard. He was abusive and drank. She did everything she could to protect her son, that is why she didn´t want him to return home from Hogwarts on holidays, because then he too would be targeted. They did not have a lot of money, but all she had she saved for her son; because she loved him dearly." Snape was staring at Harry´s face as if he wanted to speak but could not, yet.

Harry held his hand. "One day the boy learned that his father had murdered his mother and his heart broke. She was all he had, almost. He had a best friend that lived not far from himself and she had been placed in Gryffindor, away from him. He loved her dearly. She treated him kind, and she tried to stop the other Gryffindors from bullying him, but she was not always around. He didn´t have a lot of friends in school, because he was also a loner trapped in the house of snakes. As he grew older he was still grieving the loss of his friendship to the girl he loved and the loss of his own mother when someone older offered him a way out. Power beyond anything. A way to get away from pain."

Snape coughed and Harry gave him water again but didn´t stop the words from coming. "Blinded by loneliness, pain and sorrow, he was sure he could trust this man and his promises for a way out. But Lucius Malfoy was blinded too by his own stupidity, and he took the young man with him in his downfall. They joined Voldemort. But it didn´t take long before the young man realized his mistake. Then it was too late, he was already in too deep. One does not come out alive from being a Death eater. When his best childhood friend and her husband were murdered by Voldemort himself, the young man ran to Dumbledore for forgiveness. He wanted to make things right again, so Dumbledore told the man he could serve the Order of the Phoenix and spy on Voldemort. Because the old man knew that Voldemort had not truly gone away for good."

Tears fell from Snape´s eyes but Harry wiped them away so only he noticed they were there. "Dumbledore had one demand though. The spy also had to watch over the son of his childhood friend and his childhood enemy once he entered Hogwarts. So every day when Voldemort _did_ return like Dumbledore had known he would, the spy would risk his life, teaching at Hogwarts during the day, at night when he was summoned he was forced to follow Voldemort´s demands at Dumbledore´s request. Demands of torturing others against his will, witnessing rape, murders. He was caught up in a world of good and evil, having to live in both. Being hating in both worlds. That was the price he had to pay for his mistake, because he felt that it was his fault that his childhood friend was murdered."

Harry was now crying. Even though he had done everything he could for Snape, his skin was slowly turning blue, and Harry knew he was dying. And nobody would help him. "He kept punishing himself for his mistake, refusing to be happy. He made no friends, he kept to himself away from his colleagues and neighbors. He never forgave himself."

Harry placed his hand across Snape´s heart, "But if he searched deep within, he would know that _she_ would have. She would have looked past his mistake, because that´s who she was; kind, loving, forgiving. That´s why he loved her, because she was the only one besides his mother that had been that way towards him."

Harry closed his eyes briefly while sobbing, but he forced himself to go on with his story, not caring to stop the tears Snape´s eyes were producing. "Then Dumbledore asked the impossible of the spy; to take his life. He was already dying from a curse that was being held inside a Horcrux. It broke the spy´s heart further, because the only one he had left, the only person that knew that he had changed his fate around was going to die. The spy knew he too would end up dead and alone, or worse alone in Azkaban. Yet, he still chose to follow Dumbledore´s path. He watched over the boy as he became a young man. He served both worlds until he could not. Instead of giving up he chose to be the bravest man the young man had ever met and turn against his allies, the ones who could keep him alive, and he fought evil from within the ranks."

Harry tossed his glasses to the ground and wiped his eyes and leaned closer and began wiping away the blood from Snape´s body. He could have used magic, but he wanted to touch him. "The young man could not have done what he had to do; free himself of his burden, without the spy´s aid. Not once did the spy ever demand respect or praise from his bravery. He kept it all to himself because he felt he didn´t deserve to be acknowledged. He had become a ghost that nobody really knew but they all hated with a passion, so he already felt dead on the inside. It didn´t really matter to him anymore. All that mattered was to make amends. Because that is what he had promised himself, and what he had promised the man he had come to care for like a father. The man he had to murder because it fit into their plans to get rid of Voldemort."

Harry wiped his eyes to be able to see better but it didn´t last long. "He felt alone again. He was sure he was hated by all and had nobody left. But that´s not true. There was someone who saw the real him. Someone who forgives him for his mistake. Someone w-who… who loves him." Harry collapsed on Snape´s chest and he felt a hand caressing his hair. "Please. I don´t know what to do to help you. I can´t – please tell me what to do." Harry sobbed as Snape held him in his arms as he was struggling to breathe.

When Harry raised his head to stare into dark orbs he saw only kindness and he _had_ to lean in and place a gentle kiss to Snape´s lips. If it startled the other, he didn´t show it. Instead, he kissed him back. Maybe because he was thankful that Harry had told his story, and others would know of it. Or maybe because he was dying. "Please don´t leave me." Harry held onto Snape´s left arm. "I love you," Harry whispered against Snape´s lips and Snape tried to smile when speaking was impossible.

Someone was trying to get through Harry´s shields and Harry raised his wand to secure it once more when he saw who was trying to burst it open. McGonagall, Charlie, Bill, and Kingsley were all shooting spells at the shield, while a frantic Madam Pomfrey was pacing. Harry met her eyes, they were soft, and sad. She wanted to help. Harry lowered the shield so she could step through but placed it up again, knowing that not all would believe his stories just yet.

Maybe there was hope.

 _Ugh, I don´t know where this came from. But I had to get it out. I wept all the way through writing it. So many emotions in this once man´s fate, so sad and so wrong._

 _It broke my heart to read the end of Harry Potter and Snape´s life was no more. He should have been happy! He deserved that, eventually._

 _I have no idea how this will be taken in, but I would love to hear from you still. Being a writer is not always funny, but it is rewarding when people take the time to review stories that mean something to the author._

 _Thank you! See you out there._

 _And I will finish my other story, but I´m soooooo tired at the moment because of the pregnancy._

 _Be gentle._


End file.
